Tuesday, 30 November 2010

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) COP16 opens this week in Cancún, Mexico to discuss green business (November 29 – December 10, 2010). No one is expecting any global climate treaty to be signed at this conference. However there is hope that some progress could be made.

Two articles in particular caught my attention over the weekend. The first article was published in Grist is by Jennifer Morgan, Climate Director at the World Resources Institute, a think tank based in Washington, DC. The title of her article is “What can climate negotiations achieve in Cancun?” She writes “Establish a REDD+ mechanism” in a section titled “What decisions can be made in Cancun?” What was striking for me was the title of the following section, “What other issues remain contentious?” Clearly REDD+ is not a contentious issue for Morgan. The second article was by Kate Sheppard titled “Cancun or Bust” published in Mother Jones. Her penultimate paragraph reads, “Despite the very low expectations for a major agreement, there are major areas where the observers expect to see progress this year: ... the creation of programs to prevent deforestation (known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD). Progress in those areas would go a long way toward building trust and partnership between nations, observers say.”

I bet you’re wondering—what the heck is REDD?

Almost a year ago I went to Copenhagen for the last round of the UN Climate Conference COP15 with Sarah James, Gwich’in activist and current board chair of the Gwich’in Steering Committee in Fairbanks, Alaska. During the opening day of the conference Amy Goodman interviewed Sarah and I for a segment on Democracy Now. There, I participated in a contemporary art exhibition ‘(Re–) Cycles of Paradise’ organized by ARTPORT in partnership with Global Gender and Climate Alliance, where I presented a photo–video installation to highlight Sarah James’ work. That exhibition is currently being shown at the Centro Cultural de España in Mexico City through January 16 (will overlap with COP16 in Cancún).

While in Copenhagen, we stayed at a small hotel where each day we would gather at the lobby with other fellow indigenous activists including musician Robby Romero and his daughter, singer Dakota René of the Eagle Thunder Entertainment. Robby asked me have you heard about REDD? He told me a whole bunch of things about it but with all the commotion of the conference I came back with little understanding of what REDD actually is, except that the indigenous communities around the world regard it as the “largest land grab of all time.” While the conference resulted in failure, it gave birth to what has come to be known as the Climate Justice Movement.

So here is REDD from two different perspectives.

REDD According to the United Nations

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation

REDD is a program that was conceived by the United Nations and launched in September 2008 with expertise of UN Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO), UN Development Programme (UNDP) and UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

According to UN–REDD website: “Deforestation and forest degradation, through agricultural expansion, conversion to pastureland, infrastructure development, destructive logging, fires etc., account for nearly 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than the entire global transportation sector and second only to the energy sector.” The webpage continues, “(REDD) is an effort to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development. REDD+ goes beyond deforestation and forest degradation, and includes the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.”

UN website also states, “The Programme currently has 29 partner countries spanning Africa, Asia–Pacific and Latin America, of which 12 are receiving support to National Programme activities.”

Let me explain in simple terms what it means. You may have noticed in the UN description, the line, “to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests.” Whenever there is value there is money that can be exchanged. Say a company in Global North, take BP for example want to continue their carbon emissions, but they want to offset it to reduce their net carbon footprint, then they can buy carbon credit through REDD, in the process some forest in Global South say, Indonesia would be saved while BP continues business–as–usual.

What could be wrong with such a well meaning and benign scenario to save the planet from climate change disasters?

On November 25 UN–REDD Program released a Newsletter with success stories and plans for the Cancún conference that you can check out here.

REDD According to the Indigenous Forest Communities

Reaping profits from Evictions, land grabs, Deforestation and Destruction of biodiversity...

In his 4-decade career, Nick Cave has covered literally dozens of famous songs either as a solo artist or with the Bad Seeds, the Boys Next Door, or the Birthday Party. A few well-known versions aside (“Stagger Lee,” “Mack the Knife,” “Mother Mother,” etc.), many of Cave’s covers hadn’t reached my ears… until digging through YouTube over the weekend that is. Lo and behold: they’re all quite good.

Hear a collection of 28 renditions found online of songs by the likes of Neil Young, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Roy Orbison, Nina Simone, Pulp, Nancy Sinatra, and more

South Korean war veterans protest after North Korea attacked Yeonpyeong Island. The WikiLeaks cables reveal Seoul believes such actions are those of a 'spoiled child'. Photograph: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

China has signalled its readiness to accept Korean reunification and is privately distancing itself from the North Korean regime, according to leaked US embassy cables that reveal senior Beijing figures regard their official ally as a "spoiled child".

News of the Chinese shift comes at a crucial juncture after the North's artillery bombardment of a South Korean island last week that killed four people and led both sides to threaten war. China has refused to condemn the North Korean action. But today Beijing appeared to bow to US pressure to help bring about a diplomatic solution, calling for "emergency consultations" and inviting a senior North Korean official to Beijing.

China is sharply critical of US pressure tactics towards North Korea and wants a resumption of the six-party nuclear disarmament talks. But the Guardian can reveal Beijing's frustration with Pyongyang has grown since its missile and nuclear tests last year, worries about the economic impact of regional instability, and fears that the death of the dictator, Kim Jong-il, could spark a succession struggle.

China's moves to distance itself from Kim are revealed in the latest tranche of leaked US embassy cables published by the Guardian and four international newspapers. Tonight, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said the US "deeply regrets" the release of the material by WikiLeaks. They were an "attack on the international community", she said. "It puts people's lives in danger, threatens our national security and undermines efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems," she told reporters at the state department.

The leaked North Korea dispatches detail how:

• South Korea's vice-foreign minister said he was told by two named senior Chinese officials that they believed Korea should be reunified under Seoul's control, and that this view was gaining ground with the leadership in Beijing.

• China's vice-foreign minister told US officials that Pyongyang was behaving like a "spoiled child" to get Washington's attention in April 2009 by carrying out missile tests.

• A Chinese ambassador warned that North Korean nuclear activity was "a threat to the whole world's security".

• Chinese officials assessed that it could cope with an influx of 300,000 North Koreans in the event of serious instability, according to a representative of an international agency, but might need to use the military to seal the border.

In highly sensitive discussions in February this year, the-then South Korean vice-foreign minister, Chun Yung-woo, told a US ambassador, Kathleen Stephens, that younger generation Chinese Communist party leaders no longer regarded North Korea as a useful or reliable ally and would not risk renewed armed conflict on the peninsula, according to a secret cable to Washington.

Chun, who has since been appointed national security adviser to South Korea's president, said North Korea had already collapsed economically.

Political collapse would ensue once Kim Jong-il died, despite the dictator's efforts to obtain Chinese help and to secure the succession for his son, Kim Jong-un.

"The two officials, Chun said, were ready to 'face the new reality' that the DPRK [North Korea] now had little value to China as a buffer state – a view that, since North Korea's first nuclear test in 2006, had reportedly gained traction among senior PRC [People's Republic of China] leaders. Chun argued that in the event of a North Korean collapse, China would clearly 'not welcome' any US military presence north of the DMZ [demilitarised zone]. Again citing his conversations with [the officials], Chun said the PRC would be comfortable with a reunified Korea controlled by Seoul and anchored to the US in a 'benign alliance' – as long as Korea was not hostile towards China. Tremendous trade and labour-export opportunities for Chinese companies, Chun said, would also help 'salve' PRC concerns about … a reunified Korea.

"Chun dismissed the prospect of a possible PRC military intervention in the event of a DPRK collapse, noting that China's strategic economic interests now lie with the United States, Japan and South Korea – not North Korea."

Chun told Stephens China was unable to persuade Pyongyang to change its self-defeating policies – Beijing had "much less influence than most people believe" – and lacked the will to enforce its views.

A senior Chinese official, speaking off the record, also said China's influence with the North was frequently overestimated. But Chinese public opinion was increasingly critical of the North's behaviour, the official said, and that was reflected in changed government thinking.

Previously hidden tensions between Pyongyang and its only ally were also exposed by China's then vice-foreign minister in a meeting in April 2009 with a US embassy official after North Korea blasted a three-stage rocket over Japan into the Pacific. Pyongyang said its purpose was to send a satellite into orbit but the US, South Korea and Japan saw the launch as a test of long-range missile technology.

Discussing how to tackle the issue with the charge d'affaires at the Beijing embassy, He Yafei observed that "North Korea wanted to engage directly with the United States and was therefore acting like a 'spoiled child' in order to get the attention of the 'adult'. China encouraged the United States, 'after some time', to start to re-engage the DPRK," according to the diplomatic cable sent to Washington.

He said the premier, Wen Jiabao, would push for denuclearisation and a return to the six-party talks. The official also complained that North Korea "often tried to play China off [against] the United States, refusing to convey information about US-DPRK bilateral conversations".

Further evidence of China's increasing dismay with Pyongyang comes in a cable in June 2009 from the US ambassador to Kazakhstan, Richard Hoagland. He reported that his Chinese counterpart, Cheng Guoping. was "genuinely concerned by North Korea's recent nuclear missile tests. 'We need to solve this problem. It is very troublesome,' he said, calling Korea's nuclear activity a 'threat to the whole world's security'."

Cheng said Beijing "hopes for peaceful reunification in the long term, but he expects the two countries to remain separate in the short term", Hoagland reported. China's objectives were "to ensure they [North Korean leaders] honour their commitments on non-proliferation, maintain stability, and 'don't drive [Kim Jong-il] mad'."

While some Chinese officials are reported to have dismissed suggestions that North Korea would implode after Kim's death, another cable offers evidence that Beijing has considered the risk of instability.

It quoted a representative from an international agency saying Chinese officials believed they could absorb 300,000 North Koreans without outside help. If they arrived "all at once" it might use the military to seal the border, create a holding area and meet humanitarian needs. It might also ask other countries for help.

The context of the discussions was not made explicit, although an influx of that scale would only be likely in the event of regime failure. The representative said he was not aware of any contingency planning to deal with large numbers of refugees.

A Seoul embassy cable from January 2009 said China's leader, Hu Jintao, deliberately ducked the issue when the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, raised it at a summit.

"We understand Lee asked Hu what China thought about the North Korean domestic political situation and whether Beijing had any contingency plans. This time, Hu apparently pretended not to hear Lee," it said. The cable does not indicate the source of the reports, although elsewhere it talks about contacts at the presidential "blue house" in South Korea.

Influenced by the film noir style of the 1930s and ’40s, Matteo Mezzetta puts a Hitchcock-inspired spin on DJ culture in his Noise series. Mezzetta, who is based in Milan, Italy, recreates photographs in his hyperrealistic style using only oil on canvas, so well in fact, that you have to look closely to spot the brushstrokes.

Monday, 29 November 2010

While being a huge fan of Gil Scott-Heron, his latest album I’m New Here was one of my biggest disappointments this year. The “modern” approach ended up being a weak copy of Tricky’s output back in the nineties and the sad shape of Gil’s voice could not add anything good to that.

A year after the release, Jamie xx (of The xx) is coming up with his interpretations of 13 songs from the album. Judging from the track below, the outcome might actually be ahead of the original.

Coil's 16 DVD box set Colour Sound Oblivion featured many live shows. The final two discs featured the projections used in the live shows, these were published under a Creative Commons license.

Included here are the final two discs in a variety of formats, for watching on computer, burning to DVD, prepared for editing and listening. Audio has been converted from 16-bit 48khz LPCM to flac via a lossless process. For high quality playback, i recommend the mkv option with flac audio (look in the "Other Files" section at the bottom of the file list). VLC Player (free) is the recommended player of choice, which supports many open formats.

An innocuous-looking memory stick, no longer than a couple of fingernails, came into the hands of a Guardian reporter earlier this year. The device is so small it will hang easily on a keyring. But its contents will send shockwaves through the world's chancelleries and deliver what one official described as "an epic blow" to US diplomacy.The 1.6 gigabytes of text files on the memory stick ran to millions of words: the contents of more than 250,000 leaked state department cables, sent from, or to, US embassies around the world.
What will emerge in the days and weeks ahead is an unprecedented picture of secret diplomacy as conducted by the planet's sole superpower. There are 251,287 dispatches in all, from more than 250 US embassies and consulates. They reveal how the US deals with both its allies and its enemies – negotiating, pressuring and sometimes brusquely denigrating foreign leaders, all behind the firewalls of ciphers and secrecy classifications that diplomats assume to be secure. The leaked cables range up to the "SECRET NOFORN" level, which means they are meant never to be shown to non-US citizens.
As well as conventional political analyses, some of the cables contain detailed accounts of corruption by foreign regimes, as well as intelligence on undercover arms shipments, human trafficking and sanction-busting efforts by would-be nuclear states such as Iran and Libya. Some are based on interviews with local sources while others are general impressions and briefings written for top state department visitors who may be unfamiliar with local nuances.
Intended to be read by officials in Washington up to the level of the secretary of state, the cables are generally drafted by the ambassador or subordinates. Although their contents are often startling and troubling, the cables are unlikely to gratify conspiracy theorists. They do not contain evidence of assassination plots, CIA bribery or such criminal enterprises as the Iran-Contra scandal in the Reagan years, when anti-Nicaraguan guerrillas were covertly financed.
One reason may be that America's most sensitive "top secret" and above foreign intelligence files cannot be accessed from Siprnet, the defence department network involved.
The US military believes it knows where the leak originated. A soldier, Bradley Manning, 22, has been held in solitary confinement for the last seven months and is facing a court martial in the new year. The former intelligence analyst is charged with unauthorised downloads of classified material while serving on an army base outside Baghdad. He is suspected of taking copies not only of the state department archive, but also of video of an Apache helicopter crew gunning down civilians in Baghdad, and hundreds of thousands of daily war logs from military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It was childishly easy, according to the published chatlog of a conversation Manning had with a fellow-hacker. "I would come in with music on a CD-RW labelled with something like 'Lady Gaga' … erase the music … then write a compressed split file. No one suspected a thing ... [I] listened and lip-synched to Lady Gaga's Telephone while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history." He said that he "had unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day 7 days a week for 8+ months".
Manning told his correspondent Adrian Lamo, who subsequently denounced him to the authorities: "Hillary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public ... Everywhere there's a US post, there's a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed. Worldwide anarchy in CSV format ... It's beautiful, and horrifying."
He added: "Information should be free. It belongs in the public domain."
Manning, according to the chatlogs, says he uploaded the copies to WikiLeaks, the "freedom of information activists" as he called them, led by Australian former hacker Julian Assange.
Assange and his circle apparently decided against immediately making the cables public. Instead they embarked on staged disclosure of the other material – aimed, as they put it on their website, at "maximising political impact".
In April at a Washington press conference the group released the Apache helicopter video, titling it Collateral Murder.
The Guardian's Nick Davies brokered an agreement with Assange to hand over in advance two further sets of military field reports on Iraq and Afghanistan so professional journalists could analyse them. Published earlier this year simultaneously with the New York Times and Der Spiegel in Germany, the analyses revealed that coalition forces killed civilians in previously unreported shootings and handed over prisoners to be tortured.
The revelations shot Assange and WikiLeaks to global prominence but led to angry denunciations from the Pentagon and calls from extreme rightwingers in the US that Assange be arrested or even assassinated. This month Sweden issued an international warrant for Assange, for questioning about alleged sexual assaults. His lawyer says the allegations spring from unprotected but otherwise consensual sex with two women.
WikiLeaks says it is now planning to post a selection of the cables. Meanwhile, a Guardian team of expert writers has been spending months combing through the data. Freedom of information campaigner Heather Brooke obtained a copy of the database through her own contacts and joined the Guardian team. The paper is to publish independently, but simultaneously with the New York Times and Der Spiegel, along with Le Monde in Paris and El País in Madrid. As on previous occasions the Guardian is redacting information likely to cause reprisals against vulnerable individuals.

Even way back then, in April of this year, Ireland's economic crisis was serious enough to make it a real head-scratcher that anyone would place it on top ten list, and hold it as an example of economic success, as the Heritage Foundation's Index is intended to do. Ireland is indeed an example. It's nearly a textbook example of the epic failure of conservative economics to grow an economy and austerity to spark a recovery.

Despite the crisis, Ireland’s overall levels of economic freedom remain high, sustained by such institutional strengths as strong protection of property rights, a low level of corruption, efficient business regulations, and competitive tax rates. These strengths provide solid foundations on which to build recovery and curb long-term unemployment.

That short paragraph is actually loaded with irony. The very "institutional strengths" that Heritage highlights effectively neutered the "Celtic Tiger" that the Irish economy was suppose to be. Just a year before it was written, Ireland became the first Eurozone country to fall into a recession. A month after Heritage published its index, Ireland's recession evolved into a depression . As in the U.S., Ireland's economic boom was driven by a housing bubble that took the economy down with it when it burst, with shrinking economic output and spiraling unemployment following in its wake. The bursting of that bubble was made even more devastating by the effect of conservative policies on the Irish economy.

On top of the housing bubble, Ireland's economy largely relied on exports, 90% of which were made by foreign-owned multinationals, attracted by the corporate tax rate that was among the lowest in Europe. The tax rate was sweetened by more lucrative concessions designed to attract multinationals. Indeed, when tax-cutting advocate Charlie McCreevy became Labour Finance Minister in 1997, he soon implemented what some deemed were unnecessary property-tax incentives, along with a 20% cut in capital gains tax for property investment. Banking on permanent prosperity, essentially, led to tax cuts that have deprived the country of much-needed reserves, and left it stuck choosing between severe budget cuts in service of the national debt, or investing in programs to keep people working and stimulate the economy...

The radar guns police use to spot speeding motorists have inspired a version that aims to identify a would-be suicide bomber in a crowd.

A radar gun fires microwave pulses at a car and measures the Doppler shift of the reflected signal to calculate its velocity. However, the strength and polarisation of the reflected signal – the "radar cross section" – can provide additional information about the size and shape of the reflecting object and the material it is made from.

William Fox of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and John Vesecky of the University of California, Santa Cruz, wondered whether the wiring in a suicide vest would alter the radar cross section of a bomber enough to allow a radar gun to pick him or her out in a crowd.

To find out, the pair used software to simulate how radar signals at 1 gigahertz and 10 gigahertz would be reflected by the most common arrangements of looped wiring typically used by suicide bombers. They found that the clearest reflected signals were in the 10 gigahertz range...

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

90,000 cargo ships travel the world's oceans. Photograph: Peter Maenhoudt/APBritain and otherEuropean governments have been accused of underestimating the health risks from shipping pollution following research which shows that one giant container ship can emit almost the same amount of cancer and asthma-causing chemicals as 50m cars. Confidential data from maritime industry insiders based on engine size and the quality of fuel typically used by ships and cars shows that just 15 of the world's biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all the world's 760m cars. Low-grade ship bunker fuel (or fuel oil) has up to 2,000 times the sulphur content of diesel fuel used in US and European automobiles. Pressure is mounting on the UN's International Maritime Organisation and the EU to tighten laws governing ship emissions following the decision by the US government last week to impose a strict 230-mile buffer zone along the entire US coast, a move that is expected to be followed by Canada. The setting up of a low emission shipping zone follows US academic research which showed that pollution from the world's 90,000 cargo ships leads to 60,000 deaths a year in the US alone and costs up to $330bn per year in health costs from lung and heart diseases. The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates the buffer zone, which could be in place by next year, will save more than 8,000 lives a year with new air quality standards cutting sulphur in fuel by 98%, particulate matter by 85% and nitrogen oxide emissions by 80%. The new study by the Danish government's environmental agency adds to this picture. It suggests that shipping emissions cost the Danish health service almost £5bn a year, mainly treating cancers and heart problems. A previous study estimated that 1,000 Danish people die prematurely each year because of shipping pollution. No comprehensive research has been carried out on the effects on UK coastal communities, but the number of deaths is expected to be much higher. Europe, which has some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, has dramatically cleaned up sulphur and nitrogen emissions from land-based transport in the past 20 years but has resisted imposing tight laws on the shipping industry, even though the technology exists to remove emissions. Cars driving 15,000km a year emit approximately 101 grammes of sulphur oxide gases (or SOx) in that time. The world's largest ships' diesel engines which typically operate for about 280 days a year generate roughly 5,200 tonnes of SOx. The EU plans only two low-emission marine zones which should come into force in the English channel and Baltic sea after 2015. However, both are less stringent than the proposed US zone, and neither seeks to limit deadly particulate emissions. Shipping emissions have escalated in the past 15 years as China has emerged as the world's manufacturing capital. A new breed of intercontinental container ship has been developed which is extremely cost-efficient. However, it uses diesel engines as powerful as land-based power stations but with the lowest quality fuel. "Ship pollution affects the health of communities in coastal and inland regions around the world, yet pollution from ships remains one of the least regulated parts of our global transportation system," said James Corbett, professor of marine policy at the University of Delaware, one of the authors of the report which helped persuade the US government to act. Today a spokesman for the UK government's Maritime and Coastguard Agency accepted there were major gaps in the legislation. "Issues of particulate matter remain a concern. They need to be addressed and we look forward to working with the international community," said environment policy director Jonathan Simpson. "Europe needs a low emission zone right around its coasts, similar to the US, if we are to meet health and environmental objectives," said Crister Agrena of the Air Pollution and Climate Secretariat in Gothenburg, one of Europe's leading air quality organisations. "It is unacceptable that shipping remains one of the most polluting industries in the world. The UK must take a lead in cleaning up emissions," said Simon Birkett, spokesman for the Campaign for Clean Air in London. "Other countries are planning radical action to achieve massive health and other savings but the UK is strangely inactive." The calculations of ship and car pollution are based on the world's largest 85,790KW ships' diesel engines which operate about 280 days a year generating roughly 5,200 tonnes of SOx a year, compared with diesel and petrol cars which drive 15,000km a year and emit approximately 101gm of SO2/SoX a year.

The self-effacing Lancashire-born Sam Shackleton first came to prominence during the early rise of the dubstep scene, running the label Skull Disco alongside Appleblim. Skull Disco is considered to have been quite influential, in that it combined more abstract or avant musical forms with music that could work on advanced dancefloors. It was home to Shackleton’s cuts such as ‘Stalker’, ‘Death Is Not Final’ and ‘Blood On My Hands’, reworked by Ricardo Villalobos into an 18 minute four to the floor version. Most recently he released 3 EPs on Perlon, a Berlin label renowned for its low key approach to high creativity. From dubstep to techno, Shackleton’s maverick take on big basslines and complex beats doesn’t fit into any easy categories and that’s how it’s going to stay. Shackleton’s records and live sets are thrilling and unique in their absorbing complexity and pure dancefloor enchantment.

“I got into making music on a computer by default. My previous partner in music went to the other side of the world and converted to Islam, and I didn’t want to be a one-man karaoke outfit so I bought a computer. This turned out to be a good thing for me as it made it easier to make the music that I wanted to make. Mine and my friend’s lives had a diverse soundtrack, but I remember that Stooges, Can, Throbbing Gristle, Kraftwerk and Faust were all favourites. To be honest, I haven’t really moved on from that stuff. I started playing guitar in a punk band at 14. We were not very good and got booed off stage and things thrown at us. Plus ça change, really!”

Discussing his forthcoming Fabric 55 release (Dec 2010)

fabric 55 is a timely record of Shackleton’s electric live performances, recorded in the studio but directly inspired by the fabric floor. The mix features partly new and unreleased original material – as well as tracks that have previously appeared on Perlon, Skull Disco and Hotflush, but in very different forms than the listener will have heard before. Rising out of the murky opening atmospheres are Shackleton’s favoured tribal drums and percussion that rapidly kick things into action. Refined sub-bass underpins much of the music here, alongside ceaseless drums, ominous vocal samples and layers of precise hisses, bleeps and mournful melody. Key to Shackleton’s sound is a lightness of touch and delicacy in the arrangement that could be at odds with the force of his sound but instead illuminates the different parts and awakens the senses. At times seriously freaky and twisted, with frantic percussion and jarring keys, there’s an all-encompassing deepness to the whole as Shackleton weaves a path that completely absorbs up to the final sigh of the closing bars. It’s a mix that instantly captures the listener and barely lets up before finally releasing you after 80 minutes of some of the most deep, intense and beautiful electronic music you are likely to hear this year.

“ I never thought that fabric would be interested in my music to be honest and so it was a pleasant surprise when they asked me to play in room 1, back before most other London venues would touch me, or indeed had probably heard of me. It was an even more pleasant surprise for me that some people enjoyed it. I’ve since been asked back quite regularly and every time it seems to go better. I think this is because of the sound system. It is amongst the best I have played on…. With the mix I’ve made, I have tried to make a set that would best represent the set I played on that night [at fabric], but minus the mistakes. Some of the tracks are re-jigged versions of older material, some of them are new. Some of them will never see a release in any form aside from this. Some of them are not even tracks just coincidental parts merging with each other between tracks. Those are the best bits actually. I don’t expect everyone to like it. I know it is not to everyone’s taste. That’s why I appreciate Judy sticking her neck out for this and I hope some people like it.”

Joy Division’s Stephen Morris will be talking about the influence and legacy of his former band at a public Q&A session in London next month.

Drummer Morris will be in discussion with Peter Saville (who has designed the new Joy Division +/- box set) and music critic Jon Savage. The event takes place on Wednesday 8 December at 7pm at Rough Trade East, London E1 6QL.

The event is co-hosted by Rough Trade and Rhino UK in association with NME. Numbers are strictly limited; for more information contact Rough Trade East.

Arkitip No. 0049 will be a virtual catalog of Peter's work including essays from Saville's colleagues throughout his career. It will also include two original prints from the designer in an edition of 1500. The prints will be 12 x 12 inches on 100 lb. archival stock and will sit on top of the magazine inside a custom designed box carefully encasing the magazine and prints.

Here's a bit of a surprise. According to this report, beyond just the FTD ruling we wrote about last week, there was another copyright case decision in the Dutch appeals court of The Hague, which stated that "since downloading from illegal sources for private use was permitted under Dutch law," it's actually to the advantage of copyright owners that such sites exist.

Of course, part of the reasoning for this is that there's a private copying levy, and the court was arguing that unauthorized downloads should be taken into account when calculating that levy. So, this could mean higher subsidies and "you must be a criminal" taxes in the Netherlands. Still, the argument is somewhat striking:

With reference to statements made by the Minister of Justice, the Court argued that the legitimate interest of the right holders is more adequately protected in a regime that allows downloading from illegal sources. In view of the Dutch government's statements, such a levy system better ensures that compensation is due to right holders for the use of their work.

I'm not convinced that's actually true, but it's still quite surprising to hear a court say it like that. I would imagine entertainment industry lobbyists are banging down Dutch doors right now...

Friday, 26 November 2010

South Korea reported sounds of artillery fire emanating from North Korea today, but said it appeared to be routine training. The news came hours after Pyongyang warned that the South's joint drill with the US was pushing the peninsula to the brink of war.

Seoul-based broadcaster YTN said the shells appeared to have landed within the North, away from the disputed maritime boundary in the Yellow Sea.

The firing came days after four people on a nearby island were killed in a Northern artillery attack. Pyongyang said that was a response to shelling by the South, which was conducting a live-fire drill exercise.

Seoul said its troops did not fire towards the North. But Pyongyang's foreign ministry said yesterday that shells were "bound to drop inside [the North's] territorial waters". It does not accept the Yellow Sea border, drawn unilaterally by the US at the end of the Korean war.

The South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that the few dozen residents who remain on Yeonpyeong fled to emergency shelters as they heard the distant explosions this afternoon.

Earlier the North had threatened "a shower of fire" in a statement carried by its official KCNA news agency, warning: "The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war due to the reckless plan of those trigger-happy elements to stage again war exercises targeted against the [North]."

It added that it was "ready to annihilate enemies' stronghold" and said its forces "precisely targeted and struck" South Korean artillery units on Tuesday.

Pyongyang often issues bellicose warnings when military manoeuvres are due in the area.

The US has dispatched an aircraft carrier group led by the USS George Washington to take part in training with the South Korean navy from Sunday. The exercises were planned before this week's attack but had been postponed with the US citing scheduling conflicts.

Beijing has expressed concern about the exercises in the Yellow Sea, which lies between Korea and China. But its protests were far more muted than the complaints which saw off plans for drills there earlier this year.

The US is pressing China to restrain its ally and a White House official said Barack Obama is likely to discuss the Korean situation with President Hu Jintao within days.

Domestic criticism of Seoul's response to the bombardment has continued despite the defence minister's resignation yesterday.

Hundreds of South Korean veterans demonstrated in the border town of Paju today, accusing the government of being too weak.

"The lazy government's policies towards North Korea are too soft," said Kim Byeong-su, the president of the association of ex-marines.

"It needs to take revenge on a bunch of mad dogs. We need to show them South Korea is not to be played with."